


No Better Way To Die

by monanotlisa



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Anxiety, Awkward Romance, Bonding, Canon - Video Game, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canon Universe, Character Study, Comfort, Developing Relationship, Feelings, Firsts, Fix-It of Sorts, Getting Together, Not A Death Fic At All, Other, POV Second Person, Relationship(s), Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Spoilers, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-17 22:22:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15471387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monanotlisa/pseuds/monanotlisa
Summary: He’s been furiously transcribing spells again; there’s a spatter of ink on his long fingers. “I used to be suspicious of...premonition, extra-sensory perception, but I’ve come to trust yours.”Leave it to an elven wizard who routinely bends otherworldly energy to his will to say things like this. You barely suppress a smile.





	No Better Way To Die

**Author's Note:**

> For my fellow fans who prefer the Watcher in fanfiction to not be overtly named, classed, or specified (literally). 
> 
> I didn't set out to make this story gender-neutral as well, but. Here we are.

Often it’s hard to think through the haze of memories in your mind -- not all of them yours. But this is not one of those times.

Instead, you’re painfully present in Eir Glanfath, in a pub with too many people and too much noise. You don’t blame Haggard Shoes himself, chatting pleasantly with Edér by the bar, nor the passel of monks near the exit, who have cleared out of one of the two bedrooms you are renting for tonight. It’s certainly not due to The Grieving Mother, who is listening to one of Sagani’s hunting tales just a tad too hungrily. Pallegina has struck up a conversation with an adventurer that looks properly dashing, but that is mostly about the two women smiling quietly at one another. It could be the Twin Elms patrons. The Celestial Sapling is not the loudest inn you've visited, not by a long shot. Still, everything grates on you right now. You’re already nudged into the shadows of a table near the hallway into the back, but it’s not enough. Not quite.

Next to you Aloth clears his throat. “I suppose if I asked how you were doing, you would give me either a stoic answer that said nothing, or simply an answer designed to put _me_ at ease.”

One can say a lot about Aloth Corfiser (and you do occasionally), but never that he’s stupid. You exhale, slowly. “Guess I am on edge. We’re close now; I can feel it.”

“I remember Sagani saying a similar thing that turned out to be true,” Aloth says, fiddling with the corners of what you think is his Grimoire of The Elements. He’s been furiously transcribing spells again; there’s a spatter of ink on his long fingers. “I used to be suspicious of...premonition, extra-sensory perception, but I’ve come to trust yours.”

Leave it to an elven wizard who routinely bends otherworldly energy to his will to say things like this. You barely suppress a smile. “Maybe I’m just nervous about tomorrow at Teir Evron. We’ll be praying to the gods, after all.”

Aloth nods, his lips a tight line. “And you’re not so sure about whom to call to in our hunt for Thaos.”

Well, there is the fact the gods haven’t exactly given you much advice one way or the other so far. “That, and what it will mean. You’ve said as much: Maybe they aren’t even real.” It was a stretch from what the delemgan sisters had said, but Aloth is not above taking leaps. Metaphorical leaps, that is. He’s no good at the others.

He lifts his shoulders, whether consciously or unconsciously. “I...may have misspoken.”

Oh, you’re not going there. “Or you haven’t. Maybe you spoke just right." Aloth drives you crazy when he doubts himself without an audience. It’s just you and him here. You understand it intellectually -- his parents left their mark on him, and that was _before_ being awakened with the spirit of a woman from days of yore. But emotionally, you wish he, not Iselmyr, stood up for himself. You keep looking at him. "We know there are powers at work beyond the ones we’ve always known.” 

“An understatement if I’ve ever heard one,” he murmurs, eyes darting around the room as if Skaen himself were about to jump at him from a corner. It’s silly, especially given there are no corners in the common room. Aloth: It’s not so much that you need him, although if you’re honest with yourself, you’ve come to rely on him in battle more than on anyone else, with the possible exception of Edér. It's not that.

You cover his hand with yours. “We will figure this out.” His pale skin is cool under your touch, but pleasantly so. You wonder whether you’re overheated; you definitely feel a little feverish. 

He blinks, fast and fluttery, and looks down at your hands right there on the dented wood next to the grimoire. His mouth is soft, slack in surprise. This Aloth couldn’t be further from the sheer force of magic that he is in a fight. “Right, yes; of course we will.” 

Aloth fidgets but not, you note, with the hand you’re holding. Rather, he’s moving about until he has settled into the seats at exactly at your height. No mean feat. He manages to look you in the eye, and that’s when you know. Know for sure, that is.

“Together,” you say, and you pitch your voice low. It’s not your Motivational Speaker voice, and it’s not your Be Reasonable voice. It is, really, just your voice.

Aloth bites his lip, still staring at you with eyes that are too wide. Up close and perfectly level with him, his eyes are a little less blue than they are in the light of day. There are storm clouds in their depths, gray, obscuring the sky. "Yes? I mean, this is a fine group of heroes you've assembled..."

The faint creaking you hear (in this inn made from a tree) must be the sound of your heart breaking just a little. You remind yourself to cuff Edér behind the ears tomorrow, for teasing Aloth and pretending to favor Iselmyr over him (he doesn’t, not really). You manage to speak, though. “I'm not talking about the others for now. I meant you and me, me and you.” You point toward the back room with its wide bed, because you're subtle that way. Your heartbeat is a heavy drum in your ears, and for once, there is no purple fog clouding your physical sensations. In fact physical sensations are...very much what you’re feeling. There’s a bright spark in your chest, between your legs.

“That --” he swallows, “sounds good, actually.” You’re not shocked, _conceptually_ , but still startled at what next comes out of his mouth: “Hel, sounds like it’s ‘bout time!”

“Iselmyr,” you laugh, maybe a little giddy; you can’t help it. “I take it you’re...good with this? With _us_?” She is not, you think, the one you need to be worried about here, not even given who you are and what you are. The bond Aloth and you share is powerful, but so are the elements that divide you. You are not the same, inside or outside. 

“Don’t be daffy; lookit you with yer pretty mince pies.” Aloth winces. “That...came out wrong.” He catches himself, though, and the gleam in his eyes is him, all him and no Iselmyr. “Or, you know, it came out right.” He turns his hand just so, and intertwines his fingers with yours. The pressure is reassuring, a tether. For all his verbal dithering, Aloth has always had your back. His eyes dip to your lips. “I would very much like to take you up on this, and both of us to a more quiet location.”

“Good thing we’ve booked this whole place,” you murmur, and for once are glad about kith and creatures insisting on throwing themselves into your party’s way; your purse is full and so are the merchants’ shelves in the Dyrwood. You can afford to throw money at innkeepers now, have everybody rest on real beds -- in privacy if you want it. “Let’s go.”

You see his ears twitch, and without thinking touch your own with the fingers that are not otherwise occupied:

Aloth doesn’t let go of your hand on the way into the room.

(And for a long time after, he doesn’t stop touching you.)

((That’s just how you want it. How you want him.)) 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I suppose I should really thank the writers of _Pillars of Eternity_ for giving us a character who's anxious but fierce as fuck; pretty elven wizard I feel you alot(h). 
> 
>  
> 
>    
> Title from "Bitter Glass" by Tylan on [One True Thing](https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/tylan).


End file.
